[Rhodes22-list] How to go from Single Axle Triad to a Zero AxleTriad

[Roger Pihlaja]

Richard,

In January, 1990; I towed Dynamic Equilibrium from Arkansas back to Michigan
as part of a job relocation.  The trip is about 1200 miles, mostly via the
interstates.  Since I was arriving back in Michigan in the middle of winter,
I hadn't made any provision for winter storage.  Instead, I'd made
arrangements with a body shop to store the boat on its trailer in their
covered storage yard, put a coat of bottom paint on it some time when work
was slow in the shop, & I'd pick it up about mid April.  Anyway after
driving at high speed for two days, I pulled into the body shop's parking
lot.  While I was turning around in the parking lot, one of the trailer's
wheels rolled past the driver's side window!  The center part of the wheel
had completely separarated from the rim & tire.  The center part of the
wheel was still firmly bolted onto the trailer axle while the tire & outer
rim went rolling into a ditch!  Fortunately, I have a tandem axle trailer &
this happened at low speed in a parking lot vs. out on the interstate a few
minutes earlier.  So, the remaining wheel on that side of the trailer was
able to support the load.  I put the spare tire on in the mud & slush of the
parking lot & left the boat in storage.  When I picked the boat up later
that spring, I immediately went to a tire & wheel dealer.  The sales rep & I
figured out the biggest HD wheels & tires that would fit in the available
space between the axles & under the fenders & I replaced all 5 tires &
wheels.

Roger Pihlaja
S/V Dynamic Equilibrium

----- Original Message -----
From: "Razgaitis Richard" <raz01 at mac.com>
To: <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
Sent: Wednesday, September 29, 2004 11:34 PM
Subject: [Rhodes22-list] How to go from Single Axle Triad to a Zero
AxleTriad


> By driving N on I-95 at 2 a.m. towing your trailer + rhodes, feeling a
> heavy, sudden jolt pulling back on your big SUV and looking out the
> passenger side mirror and seeing a light brighter than the center of
> the sun with the sparks of a thousand welders spraying everywhere.
> When I got (mostly) over to the shoulder and to a stop and ventured out
> into the night to see what was left, the entire, I mean entire, right
> side tire and rim was gone (Miami CSI wouldn't have found it), and only
> 35 degrees worth of my hub remained together with just two toasted stud
> bolts looking at me while crackling the surrounding air with heat
> vapors.  Near as I can tell, the hub or rim on that side just came
> apart and disappeared into the night sky and caused the trailer to fall
> down to the front-to-back rail on the right hand side and operated as a
> one-wheel and one-skid boat carrying device.  When I called AAA and
> tried to explain as carefully as I could my predicament, they called
> back to comfort me with the promise that someone was coming to fix my
> (non-existent) tire;  I tried to explain that there was no tire, no
> rim, and no hub.  And that I was thinking more on the lines of a
> Sikorsky not a tire-changer.  They later located a wrecker, who seemed
> to take it all in stride:  "let me come out there and see if I can
> scoop it up..." just like it was a dropping or something; but "scoop it
> up" is what he did.
>
> raz
> Rocky Rhodes
> Rock Hall MD
>
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